Looking Back Before Moving Forward

Tytte Bear was released a little over a month ago. Since then I have been taking some time off to reflect upon what has been accomplished and what the next step will be.  I have arrived at some conclusions and made a few decisions. Now I will share them with you.

My first conclusion is that Tytte Bear is a success. Investors, economists and pretty much any normal entrepreneur with the intent on making money would probably not agree on that. And they would be right given the result of expenses versus income. But I am not an entrepreneur. I am just a guy who wanted to make a game. Making money would certainly be nice but it was never the main goal.

My goals was to finish the project within six months, do it on a minimum budget and avoid putting in crazy overtime hours. Scoping the project was the biggest challenge because of three reasons. First, I have never started a company before. Second, I had never finished and released a game before. Third, I would have to do everything myself. True, I had Hanna who did all the graphics, for which I am truly grateful. But everything besides that (game design, code, audio, economy, website and marketing among else) would be on my desk.

I did manage complete above goals . For that reason I deem Tytte Bear a success. Off course, everything did not turn out perfect and there were features cut out. For example there were plans for more enemies and more levels. But those would have required either delaying the game, crazy over time or hire people. The first two options would take too much time and I would probably become miserable in the process. The last one was never really an option since I could not afford it.

The game has also received very few downloads and the reason is simple. I spent too little time on marketing. It is a full time job. But marketing is not my strong side nor an area I am keen to spend my time on. I rather write code. I could give the excuse that my invisible game is because of a crowded app market but I see that as a lame excuse. More or less every business is crowded. Walk into  any store and there are tons of products competing for the customers attention. If people can not see me outside the store, why would they see me inside the store?

In my personal opinion Giron Games have been a major success since I have a game released and learned a lot doing it. Alas, it is a business and in that regard it is a major fiasco. Thus I have have decided to let the company die. But do not be sad. It is more of a reorganization than a shutdown. This site will still continue but it will be as a site for personal hobby projects. Tytte Bear will continue to be available on Google Play. In fact, version 1.1 released a few days ago. In it, all ads have been disabled and removed! This autumn I will pick up my university studies again and it will take most of my time. Though I have started to tinker with a new project. The image below might have something to do with it.

Cheers,
Andreas Mikko, founder of Giron Games

shmup_prototype

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